Murdock Takes Aim SSCI Iraq Report

For starters, the report’s sources include “debriefs of multiple detainees including Saddam Hussein and former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.” Both are on trial and could face severe punishment. Their exculpatory remarks should be highly suspect, but appear valid to Senate Intelligence staffers. On page 67, their report paraphrases Hussein’s statement that he eschewed al Qaeda’s anti-Americanism because “the United States was not Iraq’s enemy.” Perhaps he merely was being playful when he fired almost daily at U.S. aircraft patrolling the No-Fly Zone and attempted to assassinate President G .H. W. Bush in 1993. Indeed, on page 68, Aziz offers the FBI Hussein’s response to al Qaeda’s August 7, 1998, bombing of America’s Kenyan and Tanzanian embassies. Hussein “was pleased at the act of terrorism because the U.S. had bombed Iraq during the first Gulf War and tried to kill Saddam. Saddam thought that al Qaeda was an effective organization.”